What approaches did photographers like Dorothea Lange and Robert Frank take when documenting Americans and the American landscape?
Lange and Frank shared some similar approaches and experiences. Both were initially trained as designers and both received prestigious Guggenheim fellowships. Lange was the first woman so honored, though she ultimately had to return her award because of illness that plagued her for much of her career. Both photographers undertook projects to tell the story of regular Americans and found the real-world problems of their subjects equally jarring. Frank’s approach to making images was more spontaneous and off-the-cuff, whereas Lange’s was less so. Her documentary approach involved the selective dramatization of the facts in terms of their human consequences. Frank was more interested in being included in the art world and Lange was more interested in the documentary notion. She was an activist throughout her life, and together with her husband, social scientist Paul Taylor, worked to change government policy. Frank was trying to make art. He ultimately stopped producing still photography
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